"Closing time effect" refers to the

phenomenon A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried W ...

whereby people's

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

of other people's

attractiveness Attraction may refer to: * Interpersonal attraction, the attraction between people which leads to friendships, platonic and romantic relationships ** Physical attractiveness, attraction on the basis of beauty ** Sexual attraction * Object or event ...

increases as it gets later into the night. The observation was first made by

Mickey Gilley Mickey Leroy Gilley (March 9, 1936 – May 7, 2022) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Although he started out singing straight-up country and western material in the 1970s, he moved towards a more pop-friendly sound in the 1 ...

in his song, "

Don't the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time "Don't the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time" is a song written by Baker Knight, and recorded by American country music artist Mickey Gilley. It was released in January 1976 as the first single from the album ''Gilley's Smokin''. The song wa ...

" in

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

. Subsequently, it caught the attention of

social psychologist Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the re ...

s who used scientific testing to gather evidence in support of the idea.

The first experiment

James W. Pennebaker James Whiting Pennebaker (born March 2, 1950) is an American social psychologist. He is the Centennial Liberal Arts Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers.experiment An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome oc ...

testing this

observation Observation is the active acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses. In science, observation can also involve the perception and recording of data via the use of scientific instruments. The ...

. Using 52 males and 51 females as subjects at three

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

s near a

college campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like se ...

, experimenters asked individuals the following question: "On a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 indicates 'not attractive', 5 indicates 'average', and 10 indicates 'extremely attractive,' how would you rate the opposite-sex individuals here tonight." The experimenters took this survey at 9:00 pm, 10:30 pm and at midnight. Results showed that individuals' perception of people's

in the bar increased the later it got.

Theory

The freedom of potentially going home with someone in the bar is threatened as the night comes closer to ending, according to the reactance theory.

Dissonance theory In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. ...

has also been suggested as an explanation, proposing that as the night progresses, individuals’ intentions to leave with someone becomes stronger; however, leaving the bar with someone who they may find unattractive causes dissonance, increasing the perceived attractiveness of the potential mate.

Other studies

Following the first

study Study or studies may refer to: General * Education **Higher education * Clinical trial * Experiment * Observational study * Research * Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning Other * Study (art), a drawing or series of drawi ...

performed by Pennebaker et al. in 1979, Nida and Koon (1983) found evidence of the closing time effect in a

country and western A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...

bar but did not find it in a campus bar. Gladue and Delaney (1990) found that individuals of the opposite gender became more attractive as a factor of time, but that photos of the opposite gender did not. They found that male participants rated the most attractive photos higher but ratings of the least attractive photos also decreased.

Females Female (symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females a ...

showed no changes over time in their photo ratings of males. Madey, Simo, Dillworth, and Kemper (1996) found the effect in a nightclub near a university, but only for participants not in a relationship. The authors argued that only participants not in a relationship should experience a threat to their choice of companion. Sprecher et al. (1984) did not find a closing-time effect.

Effect of alcohol

Johnco, Wheeler and Taylor (2010) measured the attractiveness of participants over a night while also controlling for the effect of alcohol consumption by measuring their

blood alcohol content Blood alcohol content (BAC), also called blood alcohol concentration or blood alcohol level, is a measurement of alcohol intoxication used for legal or medical purposes; it is expressed as mass of alcohol per volume or mass of blood. For exampl ...

with a breathalyzer each time that they measured individuals' perceptions of physical attractiveness. They used BAC as a time varying

covariate Dependent and independent variables are variables in mathematical modeling, statistical modeling and experimental sciences. Dependent variables receive this name because, in an experiment, their values are studied under the supposition or demand ...

in a repeated measures design, with 87 participants at a beachside pub in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, Australia on four consecutive Saturday nights, between 9 pm and 12 am. They found that both perceptions of attractiveness as well as BAC increased as a factor of time. They concluded that BAC explained a significant portion of the increase in opposite-sex attractiveness but that a substantial effect remains after adjusting for BAC.

Other possible explanations

One other possible explanation about the cause of this perception of higher attractiveness is "mere familiarity or exposure". Previously seen stimuli may be perceived more positively than new stimuli. Another explanation comes from the commodity theory (Brock, 1968). According to

commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a comm ...

theory, as people find mates in the bar and leave with them, there is a scarcity of individuals left in the bar. This scarcity increases the desirability and perceived attractiveness of those left in the bar.

References

{{Reflist

Sources

Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York: Academic.
* Gilley, M. (1975). Don't all the girls get prettier at closing time. In The Best of Mickey Gilley (Vol. 2). Columbia Records. Written by Baker Knight, Singleton Music Company. New York: Broadcast Music, Inc.
Halberstadt, J., Rhodes, G., & Catty, S. R. (2003). Subjective and objective familiarity as explanations for the attraction to average faces. In F. Columbus (Ed.), Advances in psychology research (pp. 91–106). New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Nida, S. A., & Koon, J. (1983). They get better looking at closing time around here, too. Psychological Reports, 52(2), 657–658.

Pennebaker, J. W., Dyer, M. A., Caulkins, R. S., Litowitz, D. L., Ackreman, P. L., Anderson, D. B., et al. (1979). Don't the girls get prettier at closing time: A country and western application to psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 5(1), 122–125.

The attractiveness of average faces is not a generalized mere exposure effect. Social Cognition, 23, 205–217.
* Brock, T. C. (1968). Implications of commodity theory for value change. In Psychological foundations of attitudes (pp. 243–275). Academic Press. Interpersonal attraction Popular culture Psychological effects